I have read interviews with writers who say there is no such thing as “writer’s block”. You have a set number of words to write every day and you write them. No excuses. If they are rubbish you move on and improve them in the revision process.
These are of course professional writers, who write to earn a living. There is no alternative. (That “of course” is too sweeping. Many amateur writers may take the same attitude.) However, even such a fluent writer as Douglas Adams, author of “The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy” was tormented by writer’s block.
I once wrote an embarrassingly long and bad novel. I achieved this dubious result by ALWAYS writing 200 words a day, usually last thing at night, no matter what.
Columnists, of course, have to write on a regular basis, usualy on some topical subject. Here again there is no place for writer’s block.
I write this blog as “a way of putting forward my views on just about everything, hopefully in a mostly positive way. It is a way of thinking things through for myself”. (See ‘Why I Do This’.)
So I have no motivation to write apart from satisfying myself and I usually find lots of things I want to get off my chest. Nevertheless, I can’t understand why recently I haven’t felt the inclination to write; I haven’t done a blog post at all in May, unless I get this finished.
Writer’s block? As a dilettante writer I can indulge the thought. Suggestions for moving on welcome. Perhaps I just don’t get out enough.
Photo: Philip Chu, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
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